Elton John Is Heading For Retirement

Grande Dame of British pop, Elton John has announced today that he is retiring. The star will reportedly retire from touring after nearly 50 years – but it’s not the first time Elton’s quit the stage.

In 1977, he announced he was retiring from performance. Back then, he was in a bad place generally: bulimic and addicted to cocaine, he also stopped writing songs with Bernie Taupin, and it was not until the pair reunited, and Elton built bridges with his abandoned band, that his fortunes began to get back on track.

But his ferocious workload, and equally ferocious lust for life, eventually took its toll on Elton’s body. In 1986, he had an operation to remove non-cancerous nodes from his vocal cords, which altered his singing voice. In 1999, an irregular heartbeat necessitated his being fitted with a pacemaker. And on several subsequent occasions his constitution has proven less than reliable, requiring the cancellation of planned shows – most recently last year, when he was hospitalised after contracting a dangerous bacterial infection on a flight.

Ultimately, though, it’s his sheer love of music which sustained Elton’s stage career as long it did, a true fan’s obsession with the authentic craft and magic of pop that bridled at the infection of reality-show artificiality.